The Night My Flatmate Put Me in My Place

I was twenty-five when I moved to that inland town, one of those places where summer empties everything out and winter freezes it solid. I worked from home proofreading texts for a publishing house, so I didn’t care about living far from anywhere as long as the rent was cheap. And it was. The house had an extra room, and I needed someone to help me pay for it. That’s why I put up the ad. That’s how Nadia entered my life.

I’m not going to name the town. Not for me, but for her. Some things are better left where they happened.

Nadia was twenty-seven and worked as a waitress in the only bar open year-round. She was short, with brown hair always tied up any old way, brown eyes, and a laugh that reached the room before she did. She wasn’t what people would call conventionally pretty. She had real skin, with its marks, and a small body that made no pretence of anything. But there was something about her, a quiet confidence, that made it hard to stop looking at her.

The first few months were exactly what I expected from a shared flat. We watched series at night, split the fridge, she brought me gossip from the bar and I read her out loud the outrageous things I was correcting in manuscripts. Nothing more. A comfortable coexistence, without tension, without ulterior motives. Or so I thought.

Everything changed when August arrived.

***

The town emptied out overnight. People went to the coast, the bar closed for holidays, and Nadia found herself with a whole month ahead of her with nothing to do and no one to see. I kept up my proofreading routine, but she slipped into a kind of lethargy. She stopped going out. She stopped making herself up. She spent her days in pyjamas, barefoot, sprawled on the sofa with the fan pointed at her face.

And she stopped showering with her usual regularity.

At first it was subtle. A couple of days without going into the bathroom, hair a little greasier than usual, a faint smell when she came close to the table. She didn’t seem sad, so I said nothing. I didn’t want to offend her or poke my nose where it wasn’t wanted. I thought it was the heat, the boredom, that sense of abandonment summer brings when you have no obligations.

What I didn’t expect was my own reaction.

I had never been into fetishes. I had never even stopped to think about things like that. But that smell of hers — a thick mix of sweat, unwashed skin, of something warm and animal rising from her body — started getting into my head in a way I couldn’t control. It wasn’t unpleasant. Quite the opposite. Every time she came near me, something lit up inside, a current that went straight down, uninvited.

What the hell is wrong with me?

I asked myself that all the time. It embarrassed me. And yet I waited for the moment she sat beside me on the sofa, for her to lean over to grab the remote, for her to lift her arms to tie her hair up. Every gesture of hers had become a small, delicious torture.

The problem was that I was terrible at hiding it. And she noticed.

***

I’m sure she started to notice. The way I changed position, the way I crossed my legs, the flush that rose to my face when she got too close. Nadia said nothing, but she had learned to look at my lap with a half-smile that said everything. A smile that wasn’t innocent. A smile from someone who has discovered something and is deciding what to do with it.

For several days we played that silent war. She sat closer than necessary. I pretended to focus on the screen. She stretched lazily, perfectly aware of what she was provoking. I clenched my teeth. It was like walking a tightrope, waiting to see who would make the first misstep.

I did, of course.

One night, after dinner, we sat on the sofa watching a series neither of us was actually paying attention to. The house was dim, lit only by the bluish glow of the television. It was hot. Nadia had her legs folded under her and had leaned against my shoulder, like so many other times. But that night I was at breaking point.

Her smell filled everything. It wrapped around me. And without thinking, almost without realising what I was doing, I brought my nose to her hair and inhaled. Once. Slowly. Twice. Deeper. Three times.

She went very still. Then she turned her head slowly until her eyes were a few inches from mine.

—Do you like it? —she asked softly.

—Uh… what? What do you mean? —I stammered like an idiot, trapped, not knowing where to look.

Nadia lowered her gaze to my crotch without any hurry. My body had betrayed me completely and there was no way to hide it now.

—Well —she said, her half-smile widening—. Looks like you do like it. A lot.

I went red all the way to my ears. I wanted to say something, make excuses, invent an explanation, but nothing came out. I was left speechless, exposed, completely at her mercy. And the worst part was that being caught, having nowhere to go, turned me on even more.

***

Nadia sat up slowly. Something had changed in her. The summer laziness had vanished at once and in its place was something else: a determination, a control I hadn’t known she had. She was no longer the bored flatmate in pyjamas. She was someone who had just discovered she had power over me and intended to use it.

—Look at me —she said.

I obeyed without thinking. And that was the first time I understood what was going to happen between us, what she had decided was going to happen. She didn’t ask me. She didn’t suggest it. She simply stated it with her eyes.

—You’ve been like this for days —she went on—. Sniffing me like a dog. Getting hard every time I come near. Did you think I didn’t notice?

—I’m sorry —I muttered—. I don’t know what’s wrong with me, I never…

—I didn’t ask you to apologise —she cut in—. I asked if you like it.

I swallowed.

—Yes —I admitted—. I like it.

—Louder.

—I like it —I repeated, my voice trembling.

Nadia nodded, satisfied, like someone confirming something she already knew. She got up from the sofa and stood in front of me, looking down at me. I was still seated, folded in on myself, my heart hammering.

—Then we’re going to do this one way —she said—. This works my way. I say what happens and when. You obey. If at any point you don’t want to keep going, you say so and we stop. Is that clear?

—Yes —I answered.

—Yes, what?

I hesitated for a moment. And then, with an ease that surprised even me, I gave her the answer she wanted to hear.

—Yes, whatever you say.

The smile she gave me then was different from all the others. Darker. Hungrier.

***

She came closer until she was standing between my knees and took my face in both hands. Her fingers smelled of her, of that scent that had been driving me crazy for days, and on instinct I turned my head to bury my nose in her wrist. Nadia let me do it for a few seconds, watching me, and then gently pulled me away.

—Slowly —she said—. You’ll get it when I decide.

She sat astride me, unhurriedly, letting all her slight weight drop into my lap. I felt her heat through the thin fabric of her pyjamas, her whole body against mine, and the smell intensified until it was almost solid. I closed my eyes.

—No —she ordered—. Look at me while you do it.

I opened my eyes wide. She held my gaze without blinking, absolute mistress of the situation. She moved her hips once, just a brush, and I moaned without being able to stop myself.

—You’re so easy —she whispered, and there was something almost tender in her cruelty—. Look at you. You’ve done nothing and you’re already shaking.

She was right. I was on the edge without her having hardly touched me. She caught my hands when I tried to bring them up to her waist and moved them away.

—I didn’t say you could touch me.

She left my hands at my sides, still, while she kept moving slowly, controlling every second, reading in my face exactly how much longer I could hold out. It was agony and pleasure at the same time. I, who had always believed that in these things the man took the lead, suddenly discovered that what I liked most in the world was having none at all. Letting her be in charge. Only having to obey and wait.

—Please —I said, not even knowing what I was asking for.

—Please what?

—Please… don’t stop.

Nadia leaned down until her mouth was against my ear. Her smell surrounded me completely, and her voice, when she spoke, was barely a murmur heavy with promise.

—This is only the beginning —she said—. There are twenty days left of August. And you’re going to learn to behave yourself very well.

I didn’t last much longer. One more roll of her hips, another calculated rub, and my whole body went taut and burst against her, helpless, while Nadia held my chin and forced me to look into her eyes until the very last second.

—Good boy —she said softly, when she finally let me breathe.

***

We stayed like that for a while, her on top of me, me wrecked, both of us silent while the series kept talking to itself on the television. I was gasping and my head was spinning, but inside there was a strange calm, a surrender I had never felt with anyone.

Nadia kissed my forehead, a curiously sweet gesture after everything else, and got up.

—I’m going to shower —she announced, stretching—. Tomorrow we’ll talk about the rules.

—The rules? —I asked, still dazed.

She stopped in the doorway to the living room and looked back over her shoulder, with that smile I was already getting to know far too well.

—Mine —she said—. Sleep well.

That night I hardly slept at all. And in the morning, when I went down to the kitchen and found her waiting for me with a coffee in her hand and that calm gaze of someone who has everything under control, I knew the longest August of my life had just begun. And that I didn’t want it to end.